How to Write an Amazing Email | Vanessa Van Edwards | All the Hacks Clips
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00:00:02.580 | - So we talked a lot about meetings,
00:00:07.300 | in-person, conversation, verbal.
00:00:09.740 | Does a lot of this also apply to written communication,
00:00:12.480 | whether that's, you know, emails or text messages?
00:00:15.960 | - Yes, so why don't we talk about
00:00:18.620 | the four different aspects of the book?
00:00:20.140 | Obviously, if we're in-person, we can use all four, right?
00:00:22.860 | We can use imagery, the colors we're wearing.
00:00:25.820 | We can use vocal, non-verbal, and verbal.
00:00:28.020 | In email, we're just limiting the amount
00:00:29.940 | of communication modes that we can use
00:00:31.820 | to pretty much just verbal and a little bit of imagery.
00:00:35.140 | I mention imagery 'cause I think it's also a forgotten one,
00:00:37.800 | is even fonts have personality.
00:00:40.340 | There are researchers, real researchers,
00:00:42.540 | who have looked at the personality of fonts.
00:00:44.840 | For example, Chris, you wanna do a little game?
00:00:46.740 | - Yeah, I love games.
00:00:49.420 | - What do you think is the least funny font,
00:00:54.260 | according to the research?
00:00:55.500 | Least funny font.
00:00:57.800 | - I'm gonna go with Times New Roman.
00:01:01.000 | - Okay, that was my guess as well.
00:01:02.280 | Nope, it is ironically Comic Sans.
00:01:06.500 | Comic Sans, called Comic Least Funny Font.
00:01:10.440 | They found that when people write things in Comic Sans,
00:01:12.680 | people do not find it funny, even if the joke's funny.
00:01:14.720 | So even our font can come across in our emails,
00:01:19.640 | including colors, including images
00:01:22.000 | that we might be using in our, like,
00:01:23.560 | either graphics or icons.
00:01:24.920 | So sometimes in email, we can have imagery, too,
00:01:27.360 | not as much as in person or on a Zoom background.
00:01:29.960 | Like, I'm very purposeful about the props
00:01:31.760 | I use behind me in my videos,
00:01:33.500 | but you can have some of those in emails.
00:01:35.100 | In emails, you have to be cuing people constantly, right?
00:01:39.880 | An email is so few, it's only one mode of communication,
00:01:43.760 | so you have to be really purposeful with it.
00:01:45.840 | You wanna make sure, and this is not just
00:01:47.160 | about making your emails longer.
00:01:48.620 | The biggest mistake that people make
00:01:50.000 | is they try to be charismatic by adding.
00:01:52.840 | And I don't think that being verbally charismatic
00:01:54.900 | is additive, it's about being purposeful.
00:01:57.120 | So it's using words that trigger something.
00:01:59.880 | I think a lot of our verbal communication
00:02:02.240 | has become sterilized, right?
00:02:04.240 | So we send emails that are like,
00:02:06.280 | "Hi, I'm following up the proposal.
00:02:08.320 | "I'll send it to you next week.
00:02:09.940 | "Thanks for the meeting, bye," right?
00:02:12.160 | Like, super, super sterile.
00:02:14.000 | Can you swap out even a couple of words
00:02:16.700 | with something that are gonna change people's perception?
00:02:18.820 | And the way that they tested this,
00:02:21.080 | the reason I know that even just a couple
00:02:23.440 | of verbal cues matter, this isn't additive,
00:02:25.200 | it's just being purposeful, is what the researchers did
00:02:28.240 | is they had people come into their lab
00:02:29.940 | and they split them up into two different groups.
00:02:32.360 | The first group got a set of basic directions
00:02:35.060 | and they had to complete some tasks,
00:02:36.760 | like math problems and some basic intelligence tasks.
00:02:40.720 | The second group had the exact same quiz,
00:02:43.320 | the exact same questions, but in their directions,
00:02:46.360 | they swapped out three or four words
00:02:50.120 | with achievement-oriented words.
00:02:53.040 | So achievement-oriented words are words
00:02:54.960 | like win, succeed, master, achieve, right?
00:02:59.160 | Those are achievement-oriented words.
00:03:01.040 | They just sprinkled them in, just a couple swaps,
00:03:03.040 | three or four of these words.
00:03:04.640 | They found that the group
00:03:05.900 | that read the achievement-oriented words
00:03:09.000 | did better on the task, which is insane.
00:03:12.720 | If three or four words can make people do better
00:03:14.700 | on an intelligence test.
00:03:16.560 | They worked harder and longer on the problem set
00:03:20.920 | and they had more motivation.
00:03:22.680 | So they actually enjoyed that problem set more.
00:03:26.280 | The reason I share this is because
00:03:28.400 | if three or four words swapped out in a subject
00:03:32.680 | or your profile, like your LinkedIn profile
00:03:35.680 | or your calendar agenda,
00:03:37.360 | or the slides behind you in a presentation,
00:03:39.940 | if that can make your folks,
00:03:42.840 | your listeners feel more motivated,
00:03:45.520 | wouldn't we want to give them that gift?
00:03:47.500 | Like what a gift that we can give to the world
00:03:49.760 | with our charisma actually makes them more charismatic.
00:03:53.320 | - So what I'm hearing is that
00:03:55.040 | you can actually have a charismatic email
00:03:57.920 | if you have the right balance of words.
00:03:59.640 | Is it the same thing?
00:04:00.640 | Add a little warmth, add a little competence to an email?
00:04:04.200 | - Exactly, so here's the hack.
00:04:06.440 | In your subjects, your greeting and your sign-off,
00:04:10.560 | I want you to match the words with your charisma goals.
00:04:13.600 | If you want to be warm, use warm words, right?
00:04:16.220 | Hi partner, good morning team.
00:04:18.400 | So happy to see you all, best, right?
00:04:20.660 | Signing off best, best is a very warm word.
00:04:23.080 | If you want to be competent,
00:04:24.320 | use competent words in your opener and your sign-off.
00:04:27.520 | Onwards, you know, let's do this.
00:04:32.000 | Can't wait to work together.
00:04:33.620 | You know, like those are competent openers and words.
00:04:35.880 | So yes, you can match your charisma goals in your emails.
00:04:39.760 | - And if you want to kind of come off more charismatic,
00:04:42.320 | as you say, is the goal to balance what's natural for you
00:04:46.700 | with those words?
00:04:47.540 | So if you kind of, at the beginning of this conversation,
00:04:50.560 | you reflected and said, wow,
00:04:52.340 | I'm probably more the competent person,
00:04:54.620 | let's add a little warmth.
00:04:56.300 | Or is the goal to put both of them out there
00:04:59.540 | to kind of have a balance in the email?
00:05:02.080 | - Okay, so this is where we get into the advanced,
00:05:04.240 | the advanced tips.
00:05:05.280 | So level one, balance.
00:05:09.020 | So if this is all new to you,
00:05:11.280 | I want as balanced as possible.
00:05:12.920 | So a little bit of warm words,
00:05:13.960 | a little bit of competent words.
00:05:15.080 | Same thing, a really easy hack that we can use here
00:05:17.620 | is like on your LinkedIn profile, look at your headline.
00:05:20.480 | Look at the first two sentences of your LinkedIn profile.
00:05:23.820 | Count the number of warm words versus competent words.
00:05:27.500 | Now this is more art than science.
00:05:28.920 | So we'll get a little bit more creative here,
00:05:31.460 | but warm words, when I say warm words,
00:05:33.300 | I mean warm words kind of make you feel the warm and fuzzies.
00:05:36.500 | Worms like words like collaborate, team, best,
00:05:39.100 | both, together, happy, great.
00:05:41.500 | Those are warm words.
00:05:42.500 | They have more warmth in them.
00:05:44.320 | Competent words are words like efficient,
00:05:46.380 | streamline, chart, data, science, right?
00:05:49.220 | Those are all more competent words.
00:05:50.800 | So a little art, not necessarily science.
00:05:52.380 | Actually, I have a glossary in the book
00:05:53.820 | if you want a more specific list.
00:05:56.500 | I want you to look at your LinkedIn profile
00:05:57.700 | and a way to count how many warm words,
00:05:59.980 | how many competent words you're using.
00:06:01.840 | And level one goal is to make it a mix.
00:06:04.740 | So try to have an equal amount of warm words
00:06:07.180 | and competent words.
00:06:08.220 | So even when I was writing the book,
00:06:10.460 | I tried to have a balance of warm and competent words
00:06:13.660 | on the pages that mattered, right?
00:06:15.480 | So in the introduction, in the description behind the book,
00:06:18.860 | in the description on Amazon,
00:06:20.000 | 'cause I know that I wanna hit both warm readers
00:06:22.980 | and competent readers.
00:06:23.880 | I try to have a balance of both
00:06:25.520 | in any and all public-facing things,
00:06:28.940 | including like my slides.
00:06:30.560 | So I give a lot of keynotes.
00:06:31.920 | I have an exact equal balance of warm slides
00:06:34.920 | and competent slides.
00:06:36.080 | My competent slides are graphs and data and research.
00:06:39.400 | And for every single competent slide, I have a warm slide,
00:06:41.960 | a personal story, a funny gif, a joke, right?
00:06:44.820 | So those balance out.
00:06:45.980 | So I try to have that balance.
00:06:47.560 | Level two, and this is for my advanced learners,
00:06:51.500 | is if you are with a VIP, if you're with a boss
00:06:55.160 | or an important client or important customer,
00:06:58.940 | and you really want to respect them charismatically,
00:07:02.820 | you can dial up into their warmth or their competence.
00:07:07.280 | So for example, I have some VIPs in my life
00:07:09.800 | that are super high in competence.
00:07:11.800 | And so to respect and honor them,
00:07:13.880 | when I am engaging with them, I also dial up my competence.
00:07:17.880 | I still use warmth, but I just sort of edge more
00:07:21.880 | into the kind of words and nonverbal that they use
00:07:24.400 | to honor and respect where they're at.
00:07:26.160 | So that's kind of level two.
00:07:28.000 | That's the ninja level.
00:07:29.920 | - I actually, I have a practical application
00:07:32.520 | that I'm now gonna apply this.
00:07:34.000 | I'm probably more of a warmth writer
00:07:37.120 | with an exclamation point at every end of thing,
00:07:39.600 | always signing off best, smiley faces and everything.
00:07:43.560 | But my takeaway is I'm gonna go read
00:07:46.080 | like the LinkedIn profile or the bio on the website
00:07:49.480 | and try to figure out, okay, is this person
00:07:51.560 | that I'm about to email who I don't know?
00:07:53.240 | It's really easy if it's your boss.
00:07:54.760 | You know, is your boss the person that hugs you
00:07:56.640 | when you come in the room that's super, you know,
00:07:58.560 | always talking about life or are they very, you know,
00:08:00.740 | matter of fact, competent.
00:08:02.640 | But I imagine I could go read the tweets, the blog posts,
00:08:06.840 | the LinkedIn profile, identify who this person is
00:08:10.120 | and they probably are gonna be less excited
00:08:12.060 | about an email filled with exclamation points
00:08:14.400 | and smiley faces if their entire writing
00:08:17.320 | on the internet is very, you know,
00:08:19.360 | charts, percents, data, science.
00:08:22.680 | - Exactly, so like watching their YouTube video,
00:08:25.560 | watching their TED talk, looking at their profiles,
00:08:27.800 | matching them as a much, it's a way of literally saying,
00:08:31.000 | I wanna be on your page.
00:08:32.800 | Like I respect you so much that I wanna use your language.
00:08:35.440 | You also made a very good point.
00:08:36.720 | So exclamation points, emojis, and words like yay, fab,
00:08:41.720 | whoop, those are all warm, so they count as one warm point.
00:08:46.160 | In fact, every exclamation point I count as one warm point.
00:08:48.480 | So if you have three exclamation points,
00:08:49.920 | that's three warm words.
00:08:52.160 | And for my data heads, charts, percent, numbers, or data,
00:08:57.160 | those count as one competent word.
00:08:59.640 | So just consider that when you're doing your little audit
00:09:02.760 | on your profiles. - Yeah, you can just
00:09:03.600 | score an email, plus one, minus one,
00:09:05.440 | and see where you end up.
00:09:06.280 | - And so I love people to do a little audit
00:09:08.640 | where I ask them, and you can do this after this call,
00:09:10.600 | is print out your last five important emails
00:09:14.760 | that you sent out.
00:09:15.600 | Whatever five important emails you sent out,
00:09:16.960 | print 'em out, yellow for warm, blue for competent,
00:09:20.840 | and count 'em, right?
00:09:22.240 | Like how are you coming across?
00:09:23.640 | If you have a mostly yellow email,
00:09:25.320 | you are coming across as too highly warm, right?
00:09:27.720 | If you have a mostly blue email,
00:09:29.280 | you are overwhelming them in competence.
00:09:31.100 | And remember, the research shows competence without warmth
00:09:35.560 | leaves people feeling suspicious.
00:09:37.840 | That is literally what they found,
00:09:38.920 | that people who are super smart but don't have enough warmth
00:09:42.000 | they are less likely to believe your competence.
00:09:44.680 | So all blue is too much competence.
00:09:45.880 | And if you have none at all, so no yellow, no blue,
00:09:48.320 | it means you're under-signaling.
00:09:50.760 | - Okay, I'm gonna do that after this call.
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